Is there an authoritarian dictator WorldNetDaily won't rush to defend? First it was Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, then it was Syria's Assad, now it's Russia's Vladimir Putin.

Michael Savage set the tone in a March 3 WND column, declaring that the "rebel forces" in the Ukraine are "fascists" and "spearheaded by Ukrainian neo-Nazis and Chechen Islamist radicals. Putin, by contrast, "is not the villain in this" because he's not killing Jews, and he was "forced to deploy military assets to Crimea" because "Russia cannot afford to let the Crimean region fall into the hands of the insurgents who are trying to take over Ukraine."

In a March 4 article, Michael Maloof uncritically repeats a claim by a Russian official that "ultra-nationalist Ukrainians could attack ethnic Russians" and that "the West has sided with the ultra-nationalist groups, which he calls neo-Nazis, resulting in the violent government takeover." Maloof also cited "A knowledgeable Ukrainian source in Stanford, Calif," who claimed without evidence that the "real power in Kiev and much of Western Ukraine today belongs to several rival neo-Nazi factions whose masked, well-armed adherents are busy looting abandoned properties and shaking down businesses for money to support their ‘revolution.'"

Neither Maloof nor Savage report any countervailing views on the Ukraine opposition. But Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid notes that Putin himself has made similar claims, and identifies it has part of a pro-Russian propaganda campaign. Kincaid also notes that an Israeli news agency has reported that a Jewish-led militia force that actually participated in the revolution in Ukraine.

The next day, Maloof claimed that "Russian troop movements on the Crimean Peninsula are permitted under a 1997 Partition Treaty signed between Russia and Ukraine, as long as there are not more than 25,000 Russian troops."

Maloof doesn't say where he got his information from, but elsewhere in the article he cites Russia Today -- presumably this article. Maloof doesn't mention that Russia Today is operated by the Russian government -- which is to say, Putin -- and its objectivity, particularly on Russian actions in Ukraine, has been called into question. Indeed, a Russia Today TV reporter resigned on air, criticizing the invasion and her network for whitewashing Putin's actions.

WND must have a huge bed for all the dictators it crawls in there with.